East Duplin girls down Northside in battle of first-place foes in ECC

On a night when East Duplin senior Brittney Woodard surpassed the 1,000-point milestone, the Panthers also emerged with a key victory that kept them in a first-place tie in the East Central 2-A Conference.

On a night when East Duplin senior Brittney Woodard surpassed the 1,000-point milestone, the Panthers also emerged with a key victory that kept them in a first-place tie in the East Central 2-A Conference.

Woodard recorded 14 points and 16 rebounds, and junior Makayla Byrd added 14 points to lead East Duplin to a 39-36 win at Northside on Tuesday night in a girls’ basketball game that featured two of the four teams tied atop the ECC.

Later, Northside defeated East Duplin 91-40 in the boys’ game.

The East Duplin girls’ (14-3, 6-1) are now tied for first with Clinton (13-4, 6-1), which beat South Lenoir 53-42. East Duplin, Northside, Clinton and South Lenoir entered Tuesday night’s action tied for first.

“This is a big win for us because we still have a chance at first place,” Woodard said. “Now we have to beat Clinton.”

First, however, East Duplin plays host to South Lenoir (11-4, 5-2) on Friday. The win at Northside (12-4, 5-2) should give the Panthers plenty of confidence, although the victory didn’t come easy and came in what wasn’t necessarily a clean game by either team.

The Panthers shot just 36 percent from the floor while the Monarchs were 23 percent.

Senior Ashanti Curry was the only Northside player to score in double figures with 14 points.

“I think both teams had moments of really good play and moments when we both probably felt like we didn’t play our best game,” East Duplin coach Mark Lane said. “We had moments of good defense and moments of not very good defense. Neither team shot the ball well.”

But East Duplin made some shots early in the fourth quarter to go on an 8-0 run to take a 35-28 lead with 4:18 left. The spurt followed a 3-pointer by Journee Collins that gave Northside a 28-27 edge.

Still, the Monarchs answered the Panthers’ run with a 6-0 spurt to cut East Duplin’s lead to 35-34 with 2:40 left. Northside actually had several chances to take the lead, but missed four point-blank looks inside.

“The girls did a good job of getting themselves shots. They were moving off the ball better and they were putting themselves in positions to score,” Northside coach Chad Novelli said. “We didn’t lose that game by missing shots. We lost that game by not making stops and not rotating on defense.”

After Northside got within 35-34, East Duplin’s Tenae McKinzie made a free throw with 2:11 left before teammate Taylor McGowan hit a foul shot with 31 seconds left to put the Panthers up 37-34.

Following a missed 3-pointer by Northside, Woodard made a pair of free throws with 9 seconds left to make it 39-34. Curry scored on a jump shot as time expired for the final margin.

Page 2 of 3 - “We executed when we had to,” Lane said. “We wanted to make sure they didn’t get drives and kicks. We had certain ones we didn’t want to leave open. We got fortunate they missed at the end.”

After falling behind by seven in the fourth quarter, the Monarchs made things interesting by picking up their full-court pressure. It just wasn’t enough.

“I can say the cliché thing and say our shots weren’t falling, but the fact of the matter is we are a much more intense team that this,” Novelli said. “I know it was hard to come back after an emotional win last Friday over Clinton, but we have to be able to do it back to back nights if we want to get to where we want to be.

“They played hard and I know at the end that’s all you can ask for, but we still have to step it up a notch.”

Meanwhile, Woodard feels she can step up her game even more given she no longer has the pressure of trying to reach 1,000 points. She entered just two points shy of the mark and reached the milestone just 1:40 in when she scored on a putback that gave the Panthers a 5-0 lead.

“I can clear my mind and just play now instead of trying to get 1,000,” Woodard said.

Woodard, though, knows she has help, which was evident Tuesday as Byrd came up with some tough shots.

“I think she really stepped up,” Woodard said. “She had confidence in the 3-pointers and she took it inside.”

Boys

Northside 91, East Duplin 40: Northside used a 22-0 first-quarter run to pull away from East Duplin early and never looked back in an ECC win.

Jamal Parker overcame a 0-for-5 start from the field to score 13 of his game-high 25 points in the first quarter while Davion Ayabarreno added 11 of his 16 points in the opening eight minutes.

“I wish I could take this and bottle it,” Northside coach Tony Marshburn said. “We had a good practice on Monday. We practiced for about 2 1/2 hours last night and we had a good little talk before practice. We talked about some goals we needed to set and things we needed to improve on.”

Montell Stalling led the Panthers with 12 points.

“They (Monarchs) shot the ball well and we simply didn’t execute,” East Duplin coach Robert Ross said. “We tried to play at their pace and we can not play that pace.”